


for the dancing and the dreaming

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: But a lot of you like it and i think o would kill me, Fluff, I'm not happy with the way this was written, M/M, Marriage Proposal, So I'm leaving it up, Songfic, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, guys this is a milestone I've finally written something with absolutely zero angst, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 00:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21128033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Getting up was worth it, he thought, just to see Aziraphale’s beatific smile as it graced his lips, lighting him up from the inside like there was a sun tucked away into the space where his heart ought to be.Or, Aziraphale proposes and Crowley just aboutloses his mind.





	for the dancing and the dreaming

“Let me tempt you to dinner,” Aziraphale said, smiling indulgently down at him. Crowley opened his eyes—he had been dozing comfortably on the sofa in the bookshop’s backroom for the better part of the afternoon, head fallen back off its arm (never say that being an occult being doesn’t have its perks)—and blinked lazily at him.

“That’s sssupposssed to be my thing,” he said, hiss clinging on to his syllables, tongue still heavy with the gentle caress of sleep. He reached up with a languid arm to take Aziraphale’s hand in his own. His palm was slightly calloused, the product of a sword he’d never seen him properly use and six-thousand years of odd-jobs and bits of this and that.

“It is,” he agreed, “but not tonight. Up you pop.”

Crowley laughed. “_Up you pop,_” he mimicked, though not cruelly. “But I’m _ tired._”

“Why they made you the demon of Temptation, I’ll never know. Sloth would have been a much better fit on you.”

“Oh, ssshut up.”

“That would be awfully boring for the both of us. Now get up, dearest, the whole world doesn’t run on the same schedule as you. Only heaven knows where we’d be right now if it did.”

Crowley groaned theatrically, but swung his legs down. “Whatever you say, angel. Temptation Accomplished, Insert Coin. I didn’t have anything else going on tonight.”

Getting up was worth it, he thought, just to see Aziraphale’s beatific smile as it graced his lips, lighting him up from the inside like there was a sun tucked away into the space where his heart ought to be. 

“Thank you, love,” he said, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to his forehead. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Yes, definitely worth it.

...

Aziraphale was plotting something.

Crowley had known the angel long enough to know when he was planning or scheming or considering either, and he’d been plotting whatever he’d been planning for a few weeks now. He’d caught him watching him more than once, something wistful and apprehensive all at once shifting behind his eyes, quickly dispelled with a question of ‘_Angel? What’re you doing? _ ’ and an answer of ‘_Nothing at all, dear, let’s get lunch. _’

Aziraphale was currently sitting in the passenger seat of the Bentley as they drove to the Ritz. He’d been very particular about it; said they were going all-out, fully formal. Crowley had no idea what _ that _ was all about—there had never been a need to dress formally for the Ritz, not for _them,_ anyway—but he hadn’t argued. And besides, Aziraphale always looked rather handsome whenever he pulled out one of his dapper suits. The cream coloured cloth suited him, and, (Crowley realized this with a fond little jolt) he was wearing the small snake-shaped brooch he’d gifted him jokingly the previous year on his left lapel.

Aziraphale was watching him again, idly playing with the gold ring around his smallest finger.

“Penny for your thoughts, _mon ange? _” he asked as they stopped at a red light. (Not that Crowley was one to stop at red lights—he was doing it for Aziraphale’s sake. He didn’t fancy spending the rest of the night cold-shouldered.)

“Hmm?” he hummed. “Oh, nothing at all. Nothing at all.”

“I’m willing to bet,” Crowley said, moving with the rest of the traffic as the light switched to green, “a million pounds that that’s bullshit.”

“Whatever you say, love. Is that place new? I haven’t seen it before.”

Crowley let him change the subject, but pressed a kiss to the back of his hand at the next red light.

...

The Ritz had been fantastic, a blur of good food and good wine and better company.

“Crowley?”

“Yeah, angel?” Crowley asked, a hum on his breath more than actual words. Aziraphale took his hand, forcing him to stop walking and turn around. The wine they’d had at the restaurant had not been enough to get him properly drunk, but had been enough to take an edge off the world.

He still saw, however, that the street in front of Aziraphale’s bookshop was strangely empty—especially for Soho. There were only a few people walking along the sidewalks, oddly hushed for the time of night, and only a marginally larger amount of cars driving down the road. He’d never seen the place looking so_...empty._ Not in a bad way, no, not in the way of desolate and destroyed places. Simply in the way of an absence of movement, not an absence of life. He took a moment to appreciate the way the streetlamp cascaded over Aziraphale like water—the way it pooled in the hollows of his neck, on the back of his hands, spilled through his hair in golden rivulets.

Aziraphale took a deep breath.

“I do adore you, you know?” he asked, reaching out to run his hand through Crowley’s hair. He’d been growing it out, and Aziraphale seemed especially taken with it. He would play with it idly and not so idly whenever he got the chance, braiding it while Crowley slept and sticking flowers into it whenever an opportunity to do so presented itself. Crowley would never admit it out loud (he had admitted it out loud already, many times) but he loved it.

Something brilliant and _ yearning _ pulsed warmly in his chest at Aziraphale’s words. He opened his mouth to answer, but he didn’t give him a chance to. He pulled away—and dropped to a knee.

All the breath he didn’t need escaped Crowley’s lungs.

“Oh,” he said, a bit stupidly. He could have kicked himself.

“I’ve wasted so much time, love. So much time on things that shouldn’t have been important; I spent so much time forking the path where it needn’t be forked. And I must tell you that I would gladly swim and sail on every savage sea, with ne’er a fear of drowning—that I’d gladly ride the waves of life, dearest—”

_ This can’t be happening, _ Crowley thought numbly, but Aziraphale was reaching into his pocket and drawing out a small burgundy box, opening it with a snap, something infinitely fond blazing in his cerulean eyes.

“If you would only marry me.”

A noise slipped past Crowley’s teeth. It wasn’t an identifiable one. Every light on the street blew its fuse simultaneously, yet still somehow continued to glow, just as brightly (if not brighter) as before.

“No scorching sun,” Aziraphale continued, his voice soft and reverent, “nor freezing cold will stop me on my journey. If you would only promise me your heart, and love—” his voice cut out.

“And love—” He tried again. There was a silence that lasted both moments and spanned over eternities and eternities, infinite galaxies forever reaching out. Crowley came back to himself in a steady stream. Each colour grew brighter (_blew _ brighter, like a supernova, like the fall of a sword), every sensation sharpening and narrowing in on the impossible being taking a knee in front of him.

“And love,” Crowley whispered, finishing for him, “me for all eternity.”

Aziraphale was a chalice, overflowing with molten gold and liquid sunshine.

“My dearest one, my darling dear,” Crowley continued, reaching down to take the angel’s free hand. He pulled him up, smiling slightly at him, voice growing stronger. “Your mighty words astound me. But I’ve no need for daring deeds when I feel your arms around me!” With the sudden return of his joviality, he grinned at him before taking Aziraphale’s other hand and twirling him, drawing out a surprised laugh. Oh, Crowley would die because of that laugh, die for that laugh, just _ die..._

A soft breeze played over them, sparking and alive.

“_Oh__,_” Aziraphale said, cheeks rosy and eyes burning bright with an adoration so intense it was very nearly a solid, tangible thing, “but I would bring you rings of gold, I’d even sing you poetry—and I would keep you _ from all harm _ if you would stay beside me!”

“Angel, I have no use for rings of gold and I don't care for your poetry! Fuck your poetry, I only want your hand to hold. I only want you near me; to love, to kiss, to sweetly hold, for all our dancing and our dreaming. Through all life’s sorrows and delights, I’ll keep your laugh inside me!”

And he _was _ laughing, a beautiful, besotted laugh that started in his stomach and blossomed infinitely outwards. His hands were in Crowley’s hair, and on his arms, running down his back and meandering over his cheekbones, brushing his bottom lip with a thumb. He was touching him as though he’d never touched him before, as if he’d never get to again. He was _ everywhere _ and he was _ everything _ and Crowley _ loved _ him.

“I’ll swim and sail every savage sea, love, with ne’er a fear of drowning—and I’d gladly ride the waves so white if you would marry me.”

“Yes,” Crowley said, laughed, cried—he was crying, tears streaking from his eyes like falling stars. “Aziraphale, angel, dearest, _mine,_ _ yes_.”

Aziraphale was smiling so wide that it looked like it might hurt, like he would splinter and fracture and break_—but he didn’t._ He reached up and tugged Crowley’s glasses off, folding them and tucking them into his breast pocket. “Yes?” he asked, wiping the tears away with a gentle thumb.

“It could never have been anything else,” he said. “Never, angel.”

Aziraphale took the box out of his pocket again, from where he’d hastily tucked it away when Crowley had spun him. It was small and burgundy, and only made Crowley cry harder.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “Dearest mine, will you do me the honour of becoming my husband?”

“Only if you’ll do me the honour of becoming mine,” he answered, swiping the tears away and giving the angel a watery smile.

Crowley thought that the feel of the ring sliding over his finger was one of the most wonderful sensations he’d ever felt.

_ Two years later; a cottage in the South Downs, England. _

“Crowley,” a voice sang. “Crowley.”

“Mmpf,” Crowley answered, and buried his face in his pillow. The voice laughed.

“Wake up, dearest. You’ll never guess what today is!”

“What’s it?” he asked, voice muffled through the pillow.

“_Guess!_ ”

Crowley looked up from the pillow. The owner of the voice was an angel who was beaming brighter than the sun as he leaned over him.

“Dunno,” he said, but he did, he _ did _ know. Aziraphale knew this. He sat down on the edge of the bed, but Crowley dragged him closer, wrapping his arms around his, breathing in the intoxicating smell of him; old books and tea and something earthly that had rubbed off on him; ozone and muffins and jasmine blossoms.

Aziraphale bent down to press a kiss to his brow—sweet and soft as moth’s wings—brushing Crowley’s hair out of the way as he did so.

“Happy anniversary, love.”

“Happy anniversary, angel.” Crowley answered, and with a tug stronger than Aziraphale had been expecting of his half-asleep husband, he pulled him fully over onto the bed.

“Tempter,” the angel said fondly, wrapping his arms around him and pressing a lazy kiss to his neck. “I do _adore_ you.”

Crowley hummed. He’d never thought that there would be a path in his life that would lead him here; a cozy cottage in the South Downs, a greenhouse and a library, an angel for a husband kissing him wherever he could reach.

“And I love you, angel.” He kissed him full on the lips, soft and sweet and slow. It was a respite. It was like coming home. No, he'd never thought he'd wind up here—but he wouldn't give _here_ up for every marvel in the world. Aziraphale smiled into the kiss, and let Crowley love him.

**Author's Note:**

> the httyd series was my entire life as a kid, and I was recently struck by how much of an ineffable husbands song 'for the dancing and the dreaming' is, and now here we are! leave a comment and I will love you forever (even though I already do.)
> 
> find me on tumblr at @/sannikov-land.


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